The Need For Speed

20 Years Ago one of the greatest films of all-time got it’s release. Written by Graham Yost and one of the greatest men ever to walk the face of this Planet, Joss Whedon, Speed starred Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock attempting to diffuse a bomb on their bus, while staying over 50mph. On paper it probably shouldn’t have worked, but it turned out to be wildly successful.

Undoubtedly there are plenty of Speed fans out there, but one guy seriously takes the biscuit… a man who has dedicated his adult life to collecting every single copy of Speed on VHS.

When he last counted his collection last month Ryan Beitz had 782 copies of the film Speed on VHS, with possibly a few more hidden down the back of the couch or something.

Beitz’s decision to start this stange, yet brilliant, collection was one of those ideas that just came about organically…

I lived in Seattle and was super broke, and I had to come up with Christmas presents for my family. Usually I would just, like, dumpster-dive books or something and give them to them, but when I was at the pawn shop they had six copies of Speed, and I thought it would be really funny to get everybody in my family the same gift, even me. I wanted to watch them open them one at a time and go, “Oh, Speed. Don’t we already have this?” Somebody else would go, “Oh, Speed. Really funny, Ryan.” Then by the time you went around, everybody would have gotten the same gift from me. Then I could tell them that I love them all equally, you know? Just some bullshit.

Then when I bought all six it was, like, way too good. I realized it was really fascinating to have that many, like, same copies of a thing. What really cemented it was when I went to another pawn shop, and they had, like, 30 copies. I said, “I’ll take them all.” They sold them to me for 11 cents a copy.

You can follow Beitz’s antics over on The World Speed Project Facebook Page and all the details are there if you happen to have an old copy of Speed lying about and fancy helping Beitz out with his collection.

As well as the VHS collection, Beitz is also attempting to kit out his bus to replicate the one from the film. We wish him luck and can’t wait to see the end result.